My 7 Boundary Beliefs

Because of my Sensory Processing Disorder, ever since January 2023, I have had a very high standard concerning respecting people's personal space based on real experience.

     My boundary beliefs are the 7 Rs: Reiterate, Respect, Rescue, Regret, Relationships, Reveal, and Report.

1. Reiterate

When a person tells someone else not to touch them and they keep touching them, when you intervene on the person's behalf, reiterate what the person tells the personal space invader to do, so that they can take the person seriously.

     When you do not reiterate what the person tells the personal space invader to do, they will continue invading their personal space.

2. Respect

When someone tells you that they do not like physical touch, you have to respect that boundary.

     If you do not respect that boundary, you will make the person uncomfortable, and they will not want to be around you anymore.

     If the person is clearly uncomfortable with physical touch and you keep touching them, that's harassment.

     There are also people who only allow certain people to physically touch them, so it's important to also keep that in mind.

3. Rescue

When a person cannot stand up for themselves when someone else oversteps their physical boundaries, be that safe space for the person and ask them how they feel about the situation and how they want to handle it.

     You might be the only person they can go to because they only feel safe being around you and comfortable talking to you about the situation.

4. Regret

When we invade someone else's personal space regretting what we did and then years later, the situation came full circle and we see someone else invading a person's personal space the same way we did, we remember when we used to do the same thing and we try to prevent the situation from happening to someone else.

5. Relationships

We do not realize that our actions, whether good or bad, affect people and their view on us.

     We have to be mindful of our actions towards others because our actions can either cause them to want to be around us more or cause them to not want to be around us at all.

6. Reveal

When a person is dealing with a personal space invader and they talk to you about it, you have to tell an adult about it and reveal the truth to them even if they do not believe you or it is something that they do not want to hear.

     It's better to tell the truth even when it hurts than to tell a lie and to be comfortable with covering up the lie with more lies.

7. Report

There are people who report inappropriate behavior to police or to church leadership, but for me, the best person to report inappropriate behavior to is God because He is The Ultimate Reporter.

     He gives us guidelines on how to deal with inappropriate behavior.

     Matthew 18:15-17 says: “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.”

These are my boundary beliefs that I have lived and not just talked about.